


Sundown

by jusrecht



Series: Shamballa [2]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Choking, M/M, Manipulation, Unhealthy Relationships, makishima - Freeform, set in the movie timeline, yes he's a warning okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-29 06:31:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16738861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: Akane meets a ghost and an old friend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of my earlier fic and set in the same timeline. Seen entirely from Akane's POV so everything here is the result of her observations, subjective and all.
> 
> The second chapter will continue from Kougami's side of things.

 

Akane doesn’t recognise him at first.

 

He’s quiet, soft-spoken. Unobtrusive with his dark hair and darker eyes, hidden behind a pair of modest spectacles. He talks in fluent English, his discourse convincing without being forceful. He doesn’t intrude, doesn’t speak unless spoken to, and he moves as a subservient does, not a man who seeks to topple a regime in the most dreadful way possible.

 

In fact, she notices him only because Colonel Wong does. He doesn’t like him, hates him even, and the fact strikes a discordant note in her. There must be a reason why such a self-assured military man would feel so threatened by a mere civil servant, no matter how trusted by the Chairman.

 

Or perhaps it’s exactly because he’s too quiet. Too unobtrusive. He never looks her in the eye whenever their paths cross, exchanging nods and bows at most. For three days, she meets any number of officials as they try to untangle all the diplomatic knots that come with her request to leave the floating city, and there he will be, in the background, the same way he lingers at the peripheries of her mind, barely noticed but undoubtedly there.

 

Realisation, however, doesn’t come until they are fleeing together from Wong’s deadly drones, bull’s-eyes painted on their backs. It’s in the way he moves, evading shots and physical attacks alike—nimble, fluid, cat-like grace suddenly evident under the ordinary grey suit.

 

Then she _knows_.

 

 

–

 

 

Akane strikes as soon as they are hidden from sight.

 

A well-placed kick sends the man to his knees. At once, she puts some distance between them and draws her gun. It’s a small piece, much smaller than a Dominator. The lighter weight settles uneasily between her fingers, but this close, it poses no less threat than its bulkier sibling.

 

Still on his knees, he slowly looks up. Their eyes meet—and what remains of her doubt vanishes.

 

“Makishima Shougo.”

 

Even the name burns her tongue. He smiles, dark eyes and dark hair and yet still unmistakably Makishima that bile rises in the back of her throat.

 

“Inspector Tsunemori.”

 

His voice is smooth, controlled. There is no attempt to disguise himself this time. Akane feels the surge of an old panic flooding her system, clawing her insides, until every drawn breath leaves her trembling, her stomach churning. No other criminal affects her like this.

 

“It’s really you.” Even her voice has gone faint, faded, as if swallowed by his presence. She has the gun, of course. She also has a knife hidden in her right boot, the kind that tears into muscles and leaves a clean, deadly cut—and at this point she tries not to think of how much better he is at wielding one.

 

Makishima is unarmed and on his knees. Neither of these, she knows, mean much of anything. Not in his case. Now with what he can do.

 

“I was wondering when you would recognise me,” he says cheerfully, voice warmer than it has any right to be.

 

“Is this country your next target?” she demands. It takes her entire self-control to keep her hands from shaking. “Are you going to do here what you did in Japan?”

 

“Is that what you think?” Smiling, head tilted slightly, he looks harmless, almost innocent. It must be the eyes, Akane desperately grabs at the thought. The dark lenses; they lend him a human quality he doesn’t actually possess. That must be it.

 

“Why else would _you_ be here, working so close to the chairman?”

 

He shrugs—again, a painfully human gesture. “I’m afraid being in this country wasn’t even my choice.”

 

“What does that even mean?”

 

“It means, Inspector Tsunemori.” He pauses, lips curved, eyes never leaving hers, and suddenly she knows with perfect, horrifying clarity that he’s about to crush her. “It means _someone else_ who cannot bear to let me out of his sight made the decision to come here.”

 

The hammer falls silently, almost gently. They’re words, mere words, but it’s their meaning that shreds her. Just as Makishima has always been able to reduce her hard-earned fortitude to nothing simply by existing, Kougami has the same effect on her, just on a different spectrum. They are always two sides of the same coin.

 

This, however, is not even the worst of it. The worst is the fact that she barely feels any surprise. She has harboured the same formless aching doubt for the last three years. It was only after Chief Kasei had shown her pictures of Kougami that it coalesced into suspicion. And now she understands. His silence. His decision to disappear without a word. The fact that there was no body to be found. Suddenly everything makes sense.

 

“You’re lying,” she hisses, hating the weak tremor in her voice.

 

Makishima says nothing. He knows he doesn’t need to—his obscenely serene expression says what his mouth does not. Akane stares, heart in her throat. The hard curve of the trigger is tempting on her finger. A slight press is all it takes. After all, her finger might slip, and she can wipe that look off his face.

 

A rain of bullets put an end to that temptation.

 

She sees his eyes widen, his expression shift into astonishment. She recognises the moment he feels the shot. Then he falls, crumpled like a lifeless doll. A scream is stuck in her throat. For one horrifying moment, she is certain that he is dead, here, now, a victim of a mindless drone instead of a perpetrator of evil punished by true justice. The idea is so abhorrent that it shakes her out of her trance.

 

“Get up!” She screams, moving in front of him to take down a lurking pair of drones. Resolve burns hot under her skin. It keeps her aim steady, her mind clear despite the frenzied cacophony inside her chest. She will arrest him—bring him back to Japan. He will not die here, like a hunted rat. His sins are bigger than that.

 

“Not yet.” His voice is faint, but the quiet words still pierce the pounding silence around them. Eyes still fixed on their surrounds, Akane feels, more than sees, him stir. He moves slowly, rising by scant degrees until he can support his weight on one arm. It’s his arm, she realises with a sickening rush of relief; his left arm and not somewhere else potentially fatal.

 

“We must leave at once,” Makishima says once he’s back on his feet. There is a new tightness around his lips—a concession to pain, perhaps, except all she can see is the man with the razor. “I can’t die here.”

 

Akane swallows the myriad of retorts she longs to hurl at him. “Then let’s go,” she snaps instead.

 

He looks at her and smiles. He wears that same smile when he matches her running pace with ease; when he pushes her out of bullets’ range; when he disposes of two drones coming their way with one incapacitated arm and simply matchless speed. Once again Akane is reminded that this was the person who would have shot her dead if not for a chance lack of ammo.

 

The irony doesn’t escape her. Now, when he raises his hand, it’s to protect her—just as when she fires her gun, it’s to protect him.

 

.

 

The biggest and worst irony, however, doesn’t find her until Kougami does.

 

What actually happens is while navigating that maze of buildings, he mistakes her as an enemy soldier. She returns the favour by forcing him down to his knees, gun pointed straight to that narrow space between his eyes. By that point, Akane realises, anger has thoroughly twisted her insides that even a glimpse of his shock when recognition dawns burns a vicious pleasure through her.

 

“You,” he rasps, eyes wide with disbelief.

 

“Long time no see, Kougami-san.” Had she been in any other situation, Akane would have been proud at how well she could control her voice. Sparring with Sybil constantly for the last three years seems to have merits after all. He, in contrast, is clearly too rattled to exert the same degree of control.

 

“You’re here,” he says again, his own gun hanging limp and useless on his hand. Akane makes no reply. Instead, she savours the moment as long as she can, finding this reversal in roles jarring but not unpleasant, until his focus trembles, splinters, shifts—and she knows _that_ is the moment he sees Makishima.

 

Any hope she might still harbour that everything has been one giant ball of coincidence and misunderstanding crumbles then. There is no mistaking the look on Kougami’s face as he rises to his feet and approaches the other man.

 

“What happened?” he demands, and she follows him with her gaze, to where Makishima is leaning against a wall, his blood dark on the grey sleeve of his suit.

 

“It’s good to see you too, Shinya,” Makishima says, smiling faintly. The way he speaks _his_ name makes Akane clench her teeth. “Well, we were ambushed, as you no doubt can guess.”

 

“You were shot.”

 

“A moment of recklessness. It’s nothing, though.”

 

Kougami clearly has arguments lined up on that front but keeps each one of them silent for now. Instead, he turns and addresses her, meeting her gaze squarely. “We’re getting out of here.”

 

“And talk later,” she declares, if only to remind him that she won’t stop until he gives her some explanations.

 

He nods, a brusque movement. “Let’s go.”

 

Kougami takes the lead, as silent and efficient as she remembers. She carries the rear, falling back easily into their old pattern. Between them, Makishima matches their pace with a less steady gait. His breathing is ragged, and Akane finds her eyes repeatedly drawn to the spreading stain on his jacket.

 

She doesn’t miss the frequent glances Kougami casts his way either.

 

They make their progress in silence, slipping in and out of shadows as the sun steadily declines. Akane estimates that an hour has passed before they finally meet a number of Kougami’s companions. The guerrillas, she realises. The rebels. The people Kougami is fighting with. There is a degree of familiarity there, in their hands on his shoulders, their tight smiles, their relieved eyes. They are more distant with Makishima, watching, keeping him at arm’s length. Akane files this away for further scrutiny. For now, her eyes trail after Kougami as he sits down on the ground, motioning for Makishima to follow him.

 

“Let me see.”

 

“It’s only a scratch,” comes the smooth objection. Akane has to wonder how he does it when every evidence of the contrary is obvious on his pale, clammy face. “We should move out at once.”

 

“A scratch doesn’t bleed that much,” Kougami retorts, unimpressed.

 

“Depends on where it is, actually.”

 

Kougami wastes no more time arguing and just pulls him down by his uninjured arm. “Take them off and shut up.”

 

Makishima rolls his eyes through a grimace of pain but obeys. After fumbling a few times with the knot of his tie, Kougami pushes his hands away and takes over the job himself. The tie gone, buttons yield easily. Akane finds herself staring. Makishima is pale and thin and seeing him bared like that makes her wonder how on earth he could ever terrify her.

 

And then there’s Kougami. His movements are quick, efficient as he attends to the wound, but they falter, fingers twitching at every pained sound Makishima makes. There is a rawness to his expression that turns her spine to ice. More than anything, she reflects numbly, it’s the familiarity with which he touches him, as if he has spent the last three years acquainting himself with Makishima’s naked skin.

 

Akane isn’t sure when she looks away, but she makes a conscious effort to glance back at them when Kougami speaks again, “You should lie down.”

 

“Not now,” Makishima says, cracks finally evident in the drag of his breath. “Are we done?”

 

Kougami _looks_ at him. The staring match goes on until a small smile twists Makishima’s mouth. Kougami snorts.

 

“We’re going back,” he announces to the rest of the group. Only then that he glances up and meets Akane’s eyes. “And then we’ll decide what to do next.”

 

The fire of her rage is gone. Now she can only feel the cold.

 

 

–

 

 

Their opportunity to talk doesn’t come until late in the evening.

 

There are people—hundreds and hundreds of them. They treat Kougami like he is something not quite human. She has seen that kind of reverence before, in those who followed Makishima. The comparison settles heavily in the pit of her stomach. The air, chock-full of smoke from burning incense sticks, doesn’t help.

 

Later, she is introduced to Sem, their leader in name if not wholly in fact. His Japanese is stilted but functional, and his welcome is sincere enough despite the concerned looks he spares at Makishima. _Those_ come as a surprise to Akane. She watches from the corner of her eyes as they talk for a minute under Kougami’s watchful frown. She glimpses an unexpected smile on Makishima’s face at something Sem says—and has to force herself to turn away, incredulity and loathing a confusing mix in her chest.

 

Now there are only the two of them, sitting across each other, in a room with two beds, a table, and two chairs. Even as she sits holding her glass of brandy between her hands, in a borrowed shirt that smells like Kougami, she has to try very hard not to think what any of these mean.

 

“Come back with me,” she says instead.

 

Kougami doesn’t answer. There is only the breadth of the table between them and the night is silent outside. If he doesn’t answer, then it’ll be because he chooses not to.

 

Akane waits, regardless. She would’ve looked him in the eye, as she had done throughout the day—except to maintain that effort requires the kind of self-control that she no longer possesses. Perhaps this is why he’s been stalling. After such a long day, she is exhausted and he knows it.

 

Kougami has changed. Three years have passed and she has filled in all the blanks across that gap with memories that stay constant, crystallised by time. Now that he is sitting in front of her, he seems to be larger, harder, colder, more distant than she ever remembers.

 

“I’m a fugitive,” he finally says, lighting up another cigarette.

 

“At the moment,” she concedes. “But if you come back now, there’s a chance that you can have your old life back.”

 

“As a dog in the system.”

 

She doesn’t flinch; it’s either a testament of how much the last three years has hardened her core or merely proof of how tired she is. He backtracks all the same.

 

“Sorry,” he mutters, face obscured by a wisp of smoke. “It’s been a while since I have to… yeah. Sorry.”

 

 _Since he has to what?_ Akane feels numb. Perhaps with Makishima he never has to watch what he says—and what an existence that is. She measures her words every second, with every wall listening, every corner hiding an all-seeing eye.

 

“Maybe your Psycho-Pass has recovered,” she offers feebly.

 

“And maybe it hasn’t.”

 

“Even then, I can negotiate it.” This sudden surge of determination puts new steel into her voice. There is a chance. She will have to be smart if she wants to outmanoeuvre Sybil, but in this case she does have leverage. She has what they want. “You can come back.”

 

“In exchange for?”

 

She holds his gaze now, a challenge. “Makishima, of course. Isn’t that why you’ve kept him alive all this time?”

 

Kougami’s face doesn’t change. His fingers remain steady. Not even the tip of his cigarette quivers. It’s this conscious effort to keep all reactions locked within that tells her he is anything but unaffected. The realisation slips in like poison. She thought him distant; only now that she sees: there is, in fact, an abyss between them, and it’s widening with every word hurled across the table.

 

“You know what Sybil really is, don’t you?” When he speaks again, it’s with an odd sort of gentleness that doesn’t match the words.

 

“So do you,” she replies at once. “He told you.”

 

“And you think it’s a good idea to give them him?”

 

“I think it’s a rotten idea,” she keeps her face straight, her voice firm, “but still better than the alternative.”

 

He leans back into his chair and sighs. She recognises that feint; it means he’s going to attack. “What is this alternative? Me living here instead of Japan? It’s not such a bad thing.”

 

“Is it?” Akane presses on, voice rising. “Living like an exile? Forever drifting and not being able to come home? Ever?”

 

She can see how her words affect him. Kougami is not made for a rootless existence. There is something inherently steady in him, something that needs a home, familiar soil, to flourish. Earth. Not white drifting clouds.

 

“Still better than the alternative,” he echoes, and it’s his answer.

 

Warmth bleeds in her eyes. She hasn’t even notice the weight of her tears until her vision blurs, fragmenting his face out of focus.

 

“He calls you Shinya,” she whispers past the heavy lump in her throat. “Is that why you didn’t kill him?”

 

Kougami scoffs. “Of course not. Don’t pay attention to anything he says. Messing with people’s head is his hobby.”

 

She nods jerkily, the first few drops making their way down her cheeks. “Then he’s got what he wants. He’s certainly messed with mine.”

 

His hands twitch, an aborted movement. She cannot help but wonder if he has just physically stopped himself from leaning across the table and putting his arms around her. But he remains still, silent, a burning cigarette dangling forgotten between his fingers.

 

The storm passes quickly. Akane wipes her face with her sleeve. His. It’s one of his shirts. It envelopes her perfectly, all the more so because she knows this is the last time she will ever feel it.

 

“What are you planning to do now?” She looks up, face bared, daring him to look.

 

Kougami does. “Keep fighting with everyone here, I suppose.” He is careful, mindful of her pain. “Do our best not to let them get into this country.”

 

“Is that why he was there, working for the Chairman?”

 

Kougami’s left eyebrow twitches. “He volunteered.”

 

“So you’re working together now.” _And forgetting about Yuki, Kagari, Masaoka, about your friend Sasayama,_ except she didn’t say any of that out loud. If his expression were any indication, however, he has heard it all the same.

 

“It’s complicated.”

 

She cannot help but laugh, a wet, pitiful sound. Such a clichéd line. It sinks into her soul like a needle, slow and painful. But she has always known, hasn’t she? Even back then, there was always something complicated about Kougami’s hatred for Makishima. Now, after spending the last three years with him, learning about him as an individual, she can only imagine all the things that have changed.

 

“I’m keeping an eye on him,” Kougami continues when she makes no reply. Akane doesn’t think she imagines the note of desperation in it. “He’ll never kill again. Or do all the things he’s done before. I’m giving you my word.”

 

 _Because you’re in love with him,_ she almost says, the words rattling painfully in her throat. _In love with a monster. And even though that’s what he is, you love him all the same._

 

“I see,” she says, and she does.

 

Across the table, Kougami has never looked more alone.

 

**End Chapter 1**

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That midnight talk scene in the movie except it’s Kougami and Makishima.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the tags? Yep.  
> 

**  
**  


Makishima is sitting up on the wall, feet dangling over the precipice, when Shinya finds him.

 

Shinya expects the sourness that curls through him at the sight. It’s just _so_ like Makishima, to do something completely inane for no apparent reason at all. (Except of course there is a reason, hidden somewhere in tortuous labyrinth of his mind, and it will only reveal itself later, when it’s too late, when someone is dead, when Shinya has lost.)

 

What he doesn’t expect is the way his heart plunges into the pit of his stomach once he’s considered the distance between the wall and the ground and what kind of destruction gravity can inflict on a human body after such a distance. A gruesome death; only slightly better, perhaps, than a gunshot to the head.

 

“Waiting for someone to push you over?” he says out loud, mostly to banish that thought from his mind.

 

Makishima doesn’t turn, but there’s a smile waiting at the corners of his lips. “I’m afraid I only allow one person to do that.”

 

The identity of that person is immediately evident when Shinya rests his palm, flat on Makishima’s back, and provokes no other reaction than a low, contented hum. He’s thinner, Shinya realises—clings to that thread of thought like a lifeline. Otherwise, he would think about the warmth under his hand, how he spent the last five months going half mad with the lack of it, constantly tormenting himself with thoughts of skulls split open and brains extracted. To admit them is a kind of surrender that he isn’t ready to face yet, so soon after a conversation with his past.

 

And so he moves his hand instead, fingers splayed on a narrow hip. The shape is a familiar one, sharp and bony, with more angles than curves. He can almost feel the imprint of his fingers there, courtesy of every time they fuck.

 

“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters, two fingers hooked under Makishima’s waistband. “Get down from there.”

 

Still with the same faraway smile, Makishima obeys, swinging his legs over the wall to land next to Shinya. He’s a little unsteady on his feet—and this is all the reason Shinya needs to keep his hand on him. This close, he can smell the antiseptic, sharp enough to sting his nose.

 

He bites down the question before it can leave his mouth.  “What are you doing here?” he says instead.

 

“I can’t sleep,” Makishima sighs, head touching Shinya’s arm for a moment. “And neither can you, apparently.”

 

“Maybe they should’ve drugged you more.”

 

“Maybe I didn’t let them.”

 

“Maybe you’re a fucking masochist.”

 

Makishima’s smile curls into a smirk. “You’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

 

Shinya’s response is to yank him around, trapping him against the cold stone wall with his bulk. They’re of the same height but Makishima is thin, much thinner now that Shinya has to wonder if he ate at all for the last five months. With the injury and the weight loss, it’s almost too easy to manhandle him.

 

“Really.” Makishima sounds mildly amused. He doesn’t try to turn around, or attempt any kind of struggle for that matter. “Are you sure this is the best thing to do with your inspector so close?”

 

“Shut up,” Shinya retorts, all the emotions he’s kept locked inside starting to burst at the seams. He hates Makishima; that has never been the problem. The problem is in spite of that hatred, the idea of Makishima dead (and not by _his_ hand) breeds the kind of rage Shinya has never known in the darkest corners of his heart. Only one person gets to do this, he decides as he fits his fingers around Makishima’s throat. Him, and no other.

 

“You’re being too gentle,” Makishima’s voice is soft, a low rumble under the press of his thumb.

 

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

 

He doesn’t have to _look_ to see the smile on Makishima’s face. They’ve done this too many times, the familiarity comfortable and reassuring—and if the way Makishima rests his head on Shinya’s shoulder, neck bared in offering, is anything to go by, then it’s at the very least mutual. He knows it’s mutual. Makishima is pliant, relaxed, his pulse a steady beat under Shinya’s fingers.

 

Shinya tightens his grip slowly. It’s more difficult from this angle, his control less steady, but having Makishima pressed up against him more than makes up for it. He can feel the tension builds, in his spine, in the set of his shoulders. A study in increments, slow beats at first, then a lurch; a spike. Makishima’s lips part but no sound comes out.

 

Shinya focuses on his thumb and forefinger. They have all the control, pressing just under Makishima’s jaw, cutting his air and wrecking his pulse. The other two form a support column, the backbone of his grip. The little finger, however; _the little finger_ is where all the difference lies. It’s Shinya’s favourite. It’s the one that makes it into an art. It’s the one that comes later, when the other four have formed a choking cage; the one that sink into that space at the base of Makishima’s throat, just behind his collarbone, and forces a sound out of him, at long last.

 

“Ah… Kou–”

 

It shatters in the silence, his name disappearing into the chokehold. Shinya abruptly lets go, only to replace the pressure with his teeth, biting hard enough to break skin and draw blood. This sudden burst of pain, so different from the relentless choking, frays the rest of Makishima’s restraint. He gasps, wails, more desperate sounds falling out of his mouth, his fingers digging sharply into Shinya’s hips.

 

Shinya stares into the black night and holds him tight. Makishima has gone limp. His skin feels hot, but he isn’t the only one whose breathing is ragged. He isn’t the only one who’s half-hard either. Arousal is pulsing thickly in Shinya’s veins. For a moment, he considers bending Makishima over the wall and fucking him here, with the threat of anyone (Akane) to find them. The thought makes his stomach curl, and not entirely in an unpleasant manner.

 

He bites down again, just for the sake of it.

 

“Handprints and bite marks,” Makishima murmurs, voice thin and thready. “Do you think they’ll ask, or simply assume that it’s yours?”

 

“Don’t care.” Shinya knows he sounds too gentle, too tender. For once, he truly doesn’t care. There is a knot in his chest, the one that has wound itself tight for the last five months, and now it’s slowly unravelling, only because Makishima is warm and pliant in his arms, marked proper by his fingers and teeth.

 

“You should,” Makishima tells him sagely. “Your inspector is here, after all.”

 

Shinya doesn’t reply. Neither of them ever mind absence of words, both well-versed in silences. It was literally how they communicated for the first six months. Instead, he tucks his chin on the slope of Makishima’s shoulder and lets the silence fester. This close, he only has to angle his head a little to press his lips on naked skin. Makishima has a long slender neck, the kind that Shinya would love to admire had it been someone else’s. Moonlight pools on the curve of his throat, a pale stretch that goes unbroken except for the small patch ravaged by Shinya’s teeth.

 

“She wants to arrest you,” he finally says.

 

“Of course she does.” Makishima’s response is light, airy. “Inspector Tsunemori’s sense of duty is even greater than yours, which is already impressive to begin with.”

 

Shinya’s lips twist, half a snarl, half a mocking laugh. “Sense of duty? _I_ have a sense of duty?”

 

Makishima stirs then, turning his head to meet Shinya’s eyes. Triumph has never looked so serene on anyone’s face. “Well, before you met me anyway.”

 

Shinya sets his teeth on that patch of skin again. Makishima is laughing, the sound soft and fond. “The merits of a nonverbal argument. Or should I say dental?”

 

“Do you ever shut up?”

 

“ _Dico ergo sum._ ”

 

Shinya bites the inside of his cheek, but the smile slips out anyway. Of all his betrayals, this has to be the worst. There’s a lump in his throat and a sob is building around it. He remembers the look on Akane’s face. She was too kind to accuse him openly, but the accusation was there in her eyes. At that moment, he realised that this was what he had been dreading for the last three years. Her judgment. Her disappointment. Her _fury_ at his weakness.

 

It isn’t that he doesn’t feel the ghosts. Nowadays, he has to corral his thoughts, let them run strictly on their assigned courses. One slip out of lane and there _they_ are, waiting for him. Ghosts are persistent things. Many times, he has to physically stop himself from thinking along certain lines. Like Sasayama—because, God, _Sasayama_.

 

Some days, Shinya still wonders how he can live with himself.

 

“Are you going to give me up?” The question caresses his ear. This close, Makishima doesn’t need more than a whisper to wreck what remains of Shinya’s heart.

 

“Maybe,” he says, the lie thick in his mouth.

 

“Because she asked you to?”

 

“No.”

 

“I see.” Makishima falls silent for a moment. “Do you have your gun with you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then, the moment you make up your mind, you’ll have to shoot me.”

 

“I don’t _have to_ do anything.” Anger shoots through him like a bullet. His fingers return to the circle of Makishima’s neck, clenching. “ _You_ don’t get to ask me anything. In fact, I think I’ll just let them have you. That’ll serve you right. A just punishment for all the things you’ve done. What did you call it again? Right, my sense of _duty_.”

 

Shinya is panting at the end of this speech, his whole body trembling. Makishima, however, doesn’t even have the courtesy to act like he’s the least bit threatened. “You can choose to do that, of course,” he says, all calm and logic. “But I’ll fight you every step of the way. And once I’ve escaped… well, who knows what I might do without you to keep me on a leash, hm?”

 

“Stop holding the rest of the world hostage, you sick fuck,” Shinya mutters, hand falling slack. The fight has gone out of him, as suddenly as it came. Now he only feels weak, heart scrubbed raw.

 

“Sorry,” Makishima says, and the smile in his voice, the barest brush of his nose on Shinya’s jaw are too much like a lover’s that Shinya wants to cry. “Habit.”

 

This is how the worlds ends. In quiet and acceptance. For a while Shinya only breathes, in and out, until the silence settles around him, benign and no longer hostile. The ghosts are quiet now. Time, as he has discovered, can smooth down anything.

 

“She’s leaving tomorrow,” he hears himself say.

 

“Is she?” Shougo hums, thumb stroking the back of his hand; Shinya hasn’t even noticed until now. “Have you told her about Hang?”

 

“Pretty sure she already knows. She’s not stupid.”

 

“Still.”

 

“You tell her, then.”

 

Makishima makes a faint, amused sound. “Not such a good idea.”

 

“Why? Afraid she’ll put a bullet in you?”

 

He regrets it the moment the words leave his mouth. Provocation never works on Makishima. This man follows his own whims, creates his own rules, no matter what the rest of the world says.

 

“Not that.” Makishima sighs, long-suffering. “But my talking to her would rather defeat the purpose, don’t you think?”

 

“Why?”

 

Another huff, and Makishima shifts, turning around to cup his cheeks and brush the barest of kisses on his lips, just enough to make a point.

 

“Because of this, Shinya,” he says, matter-of-fact, as if it’s an every-day fact of life instead of the one thing they’ve always been careful never to mention. “Can you honestly say that you haven’t noticed?”

 

Shinya stares at him, mouth suddenly dry. “She wasn’t…” he chokes. “We weren’t like that,”

 

Makishima shrugs. “So? She went all this way to find you, only to discover that I’m still alive and you’re not exactly the man she thought you were.”

 

“She can’t possibly _know_.”

 

“If you think she walked into our room and couldn’t deduce anything from it, then you’re not giving her enough credit.”

 

 _Our room._ Shinya waits for the shudder that never comes. Because of course it is— _their_ room—the shared space and narrow beds. The two chairs. All the silent witnesses to their arguments. Their heated fucks. And it was him who taught her how to read a crime scene. Presence first, then absence, because the latter speaks as much as the former, if you only know where to look.

 

“ _We_ aren’t like that either,” he declares out loud, mostly to himself.

 

Makishima smiles and tugs him closer. “Of course not,” he says, right against Shinya’s lips, and Shinya cannot remember the first time he stopped fighting this. It’s lost in the months they spent in running, in the heat of Makishima’s mouth. He remembers, instead, a thousand little instances. Like the first time he saw Makishima smiling at a child. Or that time he fed a stray. Or the way he always lingers at windows, looking at life, people, the world he can never be part of.

 

Or that time when Shinya came home with a book tucked deep in his knapsack. It was Moby Dick, paperback edition, the pages all yellow and curled, and he left it on the round kitchen table in that small apartment they took for three months after running for eight. He had made sure to buy it, as if to acquire the book through legal means could make a difference to the entire illegality of Makishima’s existence. It was already in his hands the next morning, opened and devoured. There was a half-smile on Makishima's lips, content in the grey light of dawn, and Shinya remembers staring for long minutes, a painful twist in his stomach. 

 

Or that time when too little rest, too little food, and the constant strain of Makishima’s presence finally brought him to his knees. By then, they had been on the run for ten months. He woke up from a fever-plagued sleep expecting to find the place empty, the other man gone—except there _he_ was, standing in their small kitchen, puzzling over instructions on a package of instant porridge.

 

In the end, Shinya knows that he isn’t the only prisoner here. The fact that Makishima is just as helpless as he is in resisting this terrible pull between them is a paltry consolation—but sometimes, it’s all he has. 

 

It’s all they have.

 

“Fine,” he mutters, pulling away. “ _I_ will talk to her.”

 

“That will be wise.” Makishima smiles, faint and tired. There are shadows under his eyes, like marks of his own ghosts. “I’m getting sleepy,” he sounds a little puzzled.

 

“It’s the blood loss.”

 

“Ah.” He nods, leaning against the wall. Shinya rests a hand on his hip, just in case. “That explains it.”

 

“You should go to bed.”

 

“A good idea.” Makishima looks at him, eyes soft. “Will you take me, Shinya?”

 

It’s a question with a question underneath. Shinya feels a faint sting of irritation; this habit of Makishima, always goading him, probing him, while in truth he already knows the answer. All Shinya has to do is seal it—not with a kiss. This is the kind of decisions that should arrive with a bang, and so, naturally, he goes the other way. He hooks an arm around Makishima’s waist, pulling him close. It’s the weight he has to carry for the rest of his life.

 

“Fine,” he says, cool, almost indifferent, as if this surrender is less than what it is.

 

_This is how the world ends._

 

After all, surely there are worse reasons to fuck up one’s life than a smile.

 

_**End** _

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few footnotes.  
> \- _dico ergo sum:_ I know nothing about Latin, but let's assume that Shougo doesn't either :D He likes his wordplay so yes, it's Descartes' "cogito ergo sum", except instead of 'think', it's 'speak'. Cheeky little ass.  
> \- _This is how the world ends:_ From T.S. Eliot's poem, _The Hollow Men_. "This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper."  
>  
> 
> So that's the end of the Shamballa verse. Not sure if I'll add anything again since this is basically it for me, but I'm working on more fics for these two. Let's see.
> 
> 1\. Inspector!Makishima and enforcer!Kougami because we totally need this combo terrorising the entire bureau  
> 2\. Inspector!Kougami having a crush on a certain inmate in the Rehab Facility and visiting him every weekend to play chess and debate on German philosophers idk  
> 3\. Christmas AU with police-detective!Kougami and professor!Makishima because I just need fluff with these two once every blue moon okay


End file.
